RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani emphasised on Tuesday the need for the Army to remain fully prepared to respond to the full spectrum of threats, be they direct or indirect, overt or covert.

Gen. Kayani made these remarks during his visit to Sialkot garrison where he witnessed the Army Mobilisation Exercise.When asked to elaborate on the full spectrum of threat, a senior defence official said it meant threats from low-intensity conflict (LIC) to a full scale attack on Pakistan.

Following the validation of the army’s new concept of war-fighting in the Azm-e-Nau series of war games and exercises started in 2009, the Pakistan Army seems fully prepared to give a befitting response to the full spectrum of threat.

In the recent past, corps level exercises were conducted in Multan, Lahore, Karachi, Bahawalpur and Mangla. Both Mangla and Multan are strike or offensive corps.In a statement on Tuesday, the ISPR said the Army Mobilisation Exercise was being conducted to validate the recent changes in their mobilisation system.

These changes are aimed at improving the mobilisation time to enable the Pakistan Army to put in practice its new concept of war fighting, which has already been evolved and validated in the Azm-e-Nau series of war games and exercises in the last four years.

This new concept, or what many term doctrine, said the defence official, is based on rapid preparation for the conventional and sub-conventional threat. Keeping in view the Indian doctrine of Cold Start, the Pakistan Army has actually prepared itself on a fast line for mobilisation in a way to reduce time to make it ready for war quicker than its adversary.

The recent corps level exercises are meant to rapidly respond to the threat matrix, as Pakistan now faces conventional as well as sub-conventional threat, which falls in the category of low-intensity conflict being confronted in some areas of the country.

The Pakistan Army is a highly professional and proactive force and its preparations are always ahead of a coming threat, though the new doctrine spells out rapid mobilisation of army in a way to meet the challenge as swiftly and quick as possible.

Meantime, a military official has denied the Indian allegation of unprovoked firing by Pakistani troops. The official said it looked like Indian propaganda to divert attention of the world from Sunday’s raid on a Pakistani post by Indian troops in which a Pakistani soldier was killed.

The Pakistan military spokesman said Naik Aslam, who died when Indian troops raided a Pakistani post on LoC on Sunday, was buried in his native village in Chakwal on Tuesday.